By Matt Singer

Nothing in "Speed Racer" is real: not the cars, not the buildings, not the physics, not the stakes, and certainly not the danger. If the Wachowski brothers, creators of "The Matrix" trilogy, were trying to make a movie that looked like a video game, they've accomplished their mission — more than once, "Speed Racer" reminded me of something I'd seen just hours before while playing my new copy of Mario Kart Wii. But while absurd racing games that laugh in the face of Sir Isaac Newton can be fun to play, they're certainly not very fun to watch, especially for two hours straight burdened by merciless editing and lousy subplots.

The story, adapted from a variety of "Speed Racer" cartoons through the decades, involves a threat to the Racer family from a greedy tycoon named Royalton (Roger Allam). He wants Speed (Emile Hirsch) to race for his team and he wants his mechanically inclined Pops (John Goodman) to come with him to build cars for his company. The Racer family is proudly free of sponsors and corporate influence, but the Royalton deal offers financial security and all the luxurious purple clothes that come with it. If there is a meaning buried beneath the gaudy colors and outlandish visuals of "Speed Racer," it is here, where one could conceivably see the Wachowskis speaking about themselves and their art through Speed's dilemma. The world of racing in "Speed Racer" is one dominated by big businesses more interested in making money and selling products than real entertainment; it's not hard to see the similarities to the Hollywood moviemaking machine. The theory is given additional weight by an awkward scene between Speed and his mom (Susan Sarandon) where she makes the argument that Speed's racing is "everything art should be" and by the fact that, as film is for the Wachowskis, the Racers treat racing as a family business.

By Stephen Saito

One of Chris Eigeman's favorite performances in his directorial debut, "Turn the River," comes from an actor who has all of three lines and plays a pimply faced donut shop employee who tells his potential customers that he already drank the coffee. It's the kind of droll one-liner that one could easily imagine rolling off Eigeman's tongue during his heyday as the quick-witted star of Noah Baumbach's "Kicking and Screaming" and Whit Stillman's trilogy of "Metropolitan," "Barcelona" and "The Last Days of Disco." But "Turn the River" isn't the intellectual yukfest one might expect from an actor with a reputation for snark and smarts, but rather the heartfelt character study of Kailey (Famke Janssen), a mother forced to give up her son Gulley (Jaymie Dornan), who attempts to raise enough money through hustling at pool and poker to steal him away from his father. It's an ill-conceived plan, to be sure, and Eigeman doesn't pull any punches in its execution, nor does he shortchange any of the group of fine character actors he's assembled, including friends like Matt Ross ("Big Love") and Marin Hinkle ("Once and Again") or veterans Rip Torn and Lois Smith. Eigeman recently sat down to talk about his first film as a writer/director, how pool scenes are like sex scenes, and the moment when he realized he was no poolhall hustler himself.